Mediagazer: Google Launches Algorithm To Fight Content Spam (Barry Schwartz/Search Engine Land)

2:15 PM ET, January 28, 2011

Top News:

Seizing a Moment, Al Jazeera Galvanizes Arab Frustration — By ROBERT F. WORTH and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK — The protests rocking the Arab world this week have one thread uniting them: Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel whose aggressive coverage has helped propel insurgent emotions from one capital to the next.

Cory Bergman / Lost Remote:

NYT interviews Egyptian blogger via Skype — It looks like much of Egypt is without internet access at this hour, but earlier the NY Times interviewed Gigi Ibrahim (@Gsquare86), an Egyptian blogger and activist, who's been sending out a steady stream of tweets from Cairo. And they did it via Skype:

Discussion: The Lede and NYConvergence.com

Claire Atkinson / New York Post:

Zucker-Katie redux — Former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, expected to set up shop Monday on Park Avenue, is already lining up his next gig — he's talking about starting a syndicated talk show featuring CBS News anchor Katie Couric, according to three separate sources.

Discussion: rbr.com, TVWeek.com, Company Town, New York Magazine and Chickaboomer

Damon Kiesow / Poynter:

New York Times, ProPublica explain how e-books help monetize old news, grow audience — New e-books from The New York Times and ProPublica highlight the potential for journalists to find new audiences, and possibly new revenue, for long-form reporting. — The two e-books launched this week …

Discussion: mediabistro.com, Epicenter and bookforum.com

Brad Stone / Business Week:

Larry Page's Google 3.0 — The company co-founder and his star deputies are trying to root out bureaucracy and rediscover the nimble moves of youth — Every Monday afternoon at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., more than a dozen of Google's (GOOG) top executives gather in the company's boardroom.

Discussion: Fortune, The Atlantic Online, Search Engine Roundtable, Engadget, Search Engine Land, broadstuff, GigaOM, Gizmodo Australia, TiPb, New York Magazine, Electronista and 9 to 5 Mac

Brett Pulley / Bloomberg:

New York Times Fixes Paywall Glitches to Balance Free vs Paid — New York Times Co. has been working to fix about 200 glitches in the technology for charging online readers of its namesake newspaper, just weeks before the project is scheduled to debut, said a person familiar with the matter.

Discussion: Poynter, Yahoo! News, Talking Biz News and Cision

Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:

Is Demand Media Doing Enough to Prevent Plagiarism? — My post from yesterday on the staggering dumbness of so much of the how-to content produced by Demand Media generated a lot of response, much of it positive, but some from readers who thought I was unfair.

Discussion: AdAge, Plagiarism Blog and News, The Informer, The Social, B2B Memes and paidContent

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
The New York Times, Demand Media Edition

Discussion: eMedia Vitals, Poynter, TechCrunch and Future of Journalism

Felix Gillette / Business Week:
Demand Media's Planet of the Algorithms

Discussion: virtualeconomics, paidContent, Folio, SAI and Poynter

Jon Friedman / MarketWatch:

Will Olbermann replace Parker-Spitzer? — Commentary: CNN may decide to re-recruit Olbermann — NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Keith Olbermann, who on Jan. 21 exited his “Countdown” show on MSNBC without warning, needs a job. — And CNN needs a spark at the 8 p.m. hour. — So, is it a matter of supply and demand?

Keach Hagey / On Media's Blog:

NBC News's Mark Whitaker to CNN — Another big post-Comcast shakeup at NBC News. Mark Whitaker, the Washington bureau chief, is out. — Here's the memo from NBC News President Steve Capus: … UPDATE: He's been named managing editor of CNN Worldwide.

Discussion: Poynter, Media Decoder, Mediaite, The Wrap, Broadcasting & Cable and TVNewser

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google Launches Algorithm To Fight Content Spam — Earlier this week, Google's Matt Cutts announced they will be releasing a new on-page spam detection technique to reduce the amount of content spam we see in Google. Matt Cutts just confirmed the rumors that this algorithm is indeed live.

Discussion: Matt Cutts, MediaMemo, Fortune, Domain Name Wire and Search Engine Roundtable, more at Techmeme »

Mark Hosenball / Reuters:

Exclusive: The Next Generation of WikiLeaks — (Reuters) - All across Europe, from Brussels to the Balkans, a new generation of WikiLeaks-style websites is sprouting. — Like their forerunner, the fledgling whistle-blowing sites are a chaotic mixture of complex systems engineering, earnest campaigning, muckraking and self-promotion.

Media Week:

Thousands downloading the i app, says digital exec — The iPad app for the new national newspaper i is introducing new features says Zach Leonard, the digital executive overseeing the project, adding that “thousands” of customers have downloaded it since launch. — New features: the iPad app for the i newspaper

Kelly McBride / Poynter:

A radio shock jock, journalists report on St. Petersburg police shooting — This week, as St. Petersburg, Florida police were engaged in an all-day fatal gun battle with a fugitive, Tampa Bay news consumers had the entire spectrum of traditional and non-traditional sources of information at their disposal …

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Google Testing Display Ads In Gmail — Google appears to be testing display ads in Gmail. I discovered the following image ad in my own Gmail account this morning, and Google has since confirmed a test. — Image ads have made their way into paid search on Google.com and various other properties on Google.

Discussion: Computerworld, AdExchanger.com, Bits, MediaMemo, Nieman Journalism Lab, Erictric, The Next Web and The Atlantic Online

James McAuley / The Awl:

Our Critics Will Not Be With Us Forever — “The age of evaluation, of the Olympian critic as cultural arbiter, is over,” wrote Stephen Burn recently in the New York Times Book Review. The sun may be setting on the “Olympian” stature the critic formerly enjoyed, while the age of everyman-as-critic is on the rise.

Discussion: New York Times

The Fix:

White House picks Jay Carney as new press secretary — President Obama has chosen Jay Carney to serve as his new press secretary, replacing longtime loyalist Robert Gibbs who is leaving his post in mid February, according to a senior Administration official.